Update #3

I hate school.

There…I’ve said it.

I truly hate it.

When I went back to school four years ago I was convinced that I was going to be a better person. I wanted to be a different person. A person that made a goal and accomplished that goal. A person that enjoyed accomplishing the goal, and I thought that I had done that. I didn’t procrastinate. I studied and got good grades. I struggled with calculus (back in the day when I wanted to be a CS major), despite it being five years since I had any algebra…The point is that I was persistent and I kept pushing myself.

But, the thing that I think kept me going was the fact that I wanted to be a writer and I was convinced that school would get me to where I wanted to go. The truth is that school didn’t do much for my writing. The couple creative writing classes I took were full of students that really didn’t care about writing. It felt like I was the only one reading other’s work and giving heart felt criticism. Most of the time my own stuff wasn’t read (based on the little participation during seminars) and the participation that was there was usually unhelpful. I don’t mean to bash them. I was mostly just unsatisfied.

And then the other classes were just filler. I was forced to read what I didn’t want and I had to stumble onto different revelations when it came to my writing. I am grateful for those revelations, but it’s hard not to think that I would have come across them if I hadn’t gone to school. You see, before I began school, I was writing a lot and I had a hunger for it. I was reading fiction like crazy and also books on writing and the rest of the time I was writing.

the library by deviant artist xetobyte

I was forced to stop that when school began, because I had to concentrate on what they wanted me to do. I’m the type of person that has trouble giving a shit about something that I’m not enthralled with at the time. I would have learned so much more if my thirst for knowledge was quenched on my own instead of with school. I feel like I just wasted my time, and worst of all, I fooled myself into thinking I was a different person.

I only thought that I was changed, and I’ve just recently learned that I was only a good student because of my drive to want to be an author. It was that goal that was keeping me going, and it is a testament to how bad I wanted to be an author that I even graduated at all.

I couldn’t stand English Graduate school and I think it was because I was getting burnt out because I was trying to write my own stuff while doing everything else, and I wasn’t getting to read what I wanted and I got to the point where I thought everything I wrote and turned in had to be brilliant. So, you can imagine the stress.

Now I’m in Business school, going for my MBA, and I’m learning that I’m still the same person I was before I started school. I’m procrastinating and I just don’t give a shit. I know I’m making a better decision, overall, for my future and my family, but damn it, does it have to be so boring? So bland? I want to read good books and write about them. I want to write good books and still have money to support my family.

dream of flying by deviant artist elentori

I want everything to be stress free…but therein lies my problem. I have never been realistic, with anything. When reality hits me, I shift and juke and try to hide my ignorance somewhere else where reality is still unknown to me. The older I get the more depressing everything gets.

So, that’s how I’m doing now. I go to school and do homework. I read books and think about a time when I was a better father. Wow, this got bleak. Oh well, I know you won’t judge me.